Case Study

MMA contacted us at the beginning of March2022 to discuss their requirements at Castle HIll. After reviewing the documents, there were more questions than answers so w eorganised a site meeting to walk through the job and discuss phasing plans, access restrictions and materials specifications.

During the site meeting we made suggestions to MMA to optimise our programme, keepcosts down and improve the quality of the final product. Not all of these suggestions were possible due to the other activities going on at the time, but MMA were receptive to the ones that were feasible.

We were a couple of months away from thestart of the work and didn’t have all of the answers at this point, but we had enough information to give MMA an indication of the cost. This was important as the projectis ultimately public funded and the costs have to be scrutinised.

Following this submission we helped MMA tackle the design issues. We liaised with ourmaterial suppliers and proposed materials to MMA which met the qualities they were after. There were then several meetings involving MMA and the local authority to agree on the final specification, which took a considerable amount of time and there were several revisions.

We ended up submitting 8 revisions of our quotation to allow for both specification changes and programme alterations. Thelocal authority and MMA agreed on 5 different construction types across the length of the site, which made for an interesting build.

The MMA projects are very complex with alot of different activities going on at once. This site was relatively small so working areas are restricted and hazards are plentiful. For this reason it was agreed that the majority of the work would be carried When you have the experience working on such busy sites, you come to expect last minute delays and alterations. This site wasno different, but we accommodated all of them and told the client it was no problem.The site manager had enough going on and the last thing we wanted to do was add totheir burden.

The job involved us laying 900T of road base,350T of 2 types of binder course, 220T of 3 types of surface course and planing out 90T of existing carriage way to allow reshaping and keying in. We also organised replacementand refreshment of the lining.

With such a complex site, early contractor involvement was key. We were able to give MMA advice on the types of material that would suit their needs, how to programme the surfacing works efficiently and the order of activities to ensure the final product was the best it could be.

The site manager was impressed with our willingness to go the extra mile and adapt to changes. It meant that the deadline was met and they could honour their agreement with the local authority.